for the police, isn’t it, Michael?”
As good-natured as he usually was with his employees, Michael Voracci was not accustomed to being addressed by his first name, let alone being told his place. He tilted his head and squinted thoughtfully at Taylor before replying.
“She was a family friend,” he said. “Her father is my employee and my friend.”
Taylor listened without expression, standing close enough to him that Voracci had to look up to address him. “And it’s a crime scene,” he said.
“And it’s my property.” Voracci’s voice was soft. “I appreciate your loyalty to her. I’m not going to touch a thing. But I am going to look.
And you aren’t going to stop me, Mr. Taylor. In fact, I think it’s time you went back to work now. I’ll wait here for the police myself.”
Taylor froze for a moment then stepped back. He did not have a badge, so he had no right to stop Voracci. However, there was no way Taylor was going to leave the crime scene to anyone until the police arrived.
Where the hell were the police, anyway?
Michael Voracci, the owner of Tanglewood Vineyards, was the eldest son of Senator Anthony Voracci, former cabinet minister and a one-time hopeful for the leadership of the Liberal Party and the office of Prime Minister. Michael Voracci had been something of a celebrity himself in the late Eighties, known for his nightclub exploits and his outspoken conservative views on politics, which contrasted sharply with his father’s liberal stance. Now in his late forties, the boyish good looks the young Michael Voracci had exhibited in his youth seemed to have been stretched and exaggerated with age, making him a caricature of his younger image. With thick thighs, rounded shoulders and a belly that had taken on the shape and texture of bread dough, he was in the midst of a fast, hard slide through middle age.
“Just don’t touch anything,” said Taylor as he watched Voracci approach the doorway. “The police will want to look for fingerprints.”
“I know that.”
Voracci stepped into the shadows of the pump-house, emerging a few moments later, pale and visibly shaken. A gold fly clung to the collar of his red golf shirt.
“Horrible,” he said. “Just fucking horrible.”
Taylor nodded.
Voracci’s nod mirrored Taylor’s. He began to rock on the balls of his feet. “We should cover her up.”
“That’s a nice sentiment,” Taylor replied. “But tampering with evidence won’t help her at all.”
“No, no. I suppose that’s true.” Voracci kicked a stone. “Had you seen anyone around here?”
“Not a soul.”
Voracci rested his back against the front fender of his Dakota.
Reaching into the front pocket of his shirt, he pulled out his cigarettes. After lighting one, he offered the pack to Taylor.
Taylor shook his head. “No, thanks.”
“If she’d been alive, I’d have happily paid you the reward, you know. All five thousand. Every penny.” He exhaled a plume of smoke high into the air as he shook his head.
“I wasn’t worried about that,” Taylor said.
“The reward I posted was for finding her safe, remember?”
“I remember.”
Taylor turned away and clenched his teeth against the smell of the smoke. He fought to stay focused, fought to keep Anna’s face from appearing in front of his eyes again.
Voracci turned towards the front fender of his vehicle and unceremoniously unzipped his pants.
“My grandfather built that shed himself, you know,” he said, looking over his shoulder. A thin stream of urine splashed against the tire.
“He was a good man,” Taylor said, keeping his eyes from his employer. “I liked him a lot.”
“That’s right,” Voracci from over his shoulder. “I forgot. You used to work here in the old days.”
“When I was in school. For the summers.”
“Then you would remember him.” Voracci rolled his shoulders as the stream of urine slowed before zipping up his pants and turning around. “He started all this with a ten-acre potato field. Worked until his body was beaten. And he taught my father everything there was to know about wine and growing vines. But my father’s talent was business. He turned the farm into an empire. And now it’s my turn...”
Taylor let the words mingle with the scent of urine. He did not care to hear Michael Voracci’s self-advertisements. He had heard the speech before. It had been well-rehearsed, with much of it taken, nearly word for word, from the marketing pamphlets that were shipped with each case of Tanglewood wine. The family farm and wine operations had been successfully marketed as a longstanding family operation for the last thirty years.
Voracci’s grandfather, Antonio, a potato farmer, had started the winery as a hobby to keep himself busy in the fall and winter months.
His skill with the vines and his love for wine had made him successful.
Voracci’s father, Anthony, had replaced the potatoes with tobacco, planted more vines and turned the modest family business into a small empire that owned leasing properties, a chain of travel agencies, a trucking company and a wholesale distribution company.
When Anthony had retired fifteen years ago, he’d divided his businesses into parcels, giving most of the shares to his two sons, Vic and Michael, and keeping a small portion for himself. The farm was divided down the centre, the orchards and fields going to Vic, the vineyard and winery going to Michael.
The brothers soon began investing their family fortune into several technology companies and a host of other ventures that had very little to do with wine or farm produce, the pillars of the family’s original business. These investments had not fared well when the dot-com bubble of the Nineties had burst, and the brothers had returned their business interests to the family roots. Vic, with the help of some solid federal financing, had begin covering the fields with plastic, and venturing into hydroponic greenhouse tomatoes. This had not been the gold mine he had anticipated, due to increased competition from California, but it had been steadily profitable over the years. The winery thrived as well, Michael Voracci leveraging the family name through intensive advertising and wine competitions in both Canada and the United States. While they were extremely competitive with each other, the brothers operated both the greenhouses and the vineyard under a single joint holding company, through which they shared their equipment, trucks, water, power and warehouse facilities. Even the employees were hired under this holding company, Ben Taylor included, so they could be used each day wherever they were needed most, at the discretion of Randy Caines.
While Michael and Vic enjoyed the glow of their success, Taylor had some inside information few of the other workers would ever suspect—that most of the family fortune had been squandered. While Michael Voracci and his wife still lived on the farm, he spent more time on the golf course and travelling from one wine event to another than he did on the vineyard.
